Shadow Mountain i had walked my entire life as a dead man

Winter’s Wake blinked fiercely.

Lestan— unloved?

Such a revelation was nearly incomprehensible. Yet, it made a certain degree of sense when proffered against the summerwolf’s innate demeanor. Much had informed him that the curse of a neglectful mother often led to the gamut of empathic, nonconfrontational, and people-pleasing qualities that he could sense in Lestan.

And Wake was not an exception to this rule; his own origin hardly applied. It felt wrong to tell him at this moment that despite the absence of his birth mother, his surrogate had been a superior being by all accounts; that she, not his womb-bearer, was the one to single-handedly build his towering confidence. He was glad to speak of knowledge instead.

Some, he admitted to the academic after a short reflecting. Most of the old laws have been buried by time and skepticism. They were either too restrictive in the eyes of the youngers, or our predecessors’ courts found them counterintuitive to the Rhythm’s core tenets. Just as with life and all other systems of belief, the tome of Rhythm was ever-evolving.

The teachings that remain are too ingrained to dismiss entirely, but today they are relegated to folk tale or superstition as opposed to law.

Did Lestan have beliefs? Superstitions? Sophistries? Did he follow any gods? Or were his thoughts occupied only by the corporeal? Are you spiritual, Lestan? the preacher probed nonchalantly, black emeralds lampshaded as he looked forward to the snowpath leading up and up and up.